Cosy Rainy Day Recipe

Friends,
It's been a while since I've posted a recipe and, frankly, the reason is that I've been so busy doing so much actual cooking - what with the holiday season and all - that I haven't had time to write about it!
But the last couple of days were either bitterly cold here in New York (Split Pea Soup flavored with Smoked Turkey) or rainy AND cold like today. So, here's one of my favorite comfort foods to share with you:

Asian Inspired Roast Chicken Quarters

Ingredients:

One impossibly large package of chicken thigh quarters 

(I use dark meat in this recipe for a couple reasons. One, I prefer dark meat. And, two, because of the high temperature of roasting, the dark meat is more flavorful when it's all said and done.)

Sea salt

Freshly ground black pepper

Onion powder (NOT onion salt)

Garlic powder (see above)

Fresh ginger

Red pepper flakes

Sesame oil

Good quality soy sauce

sesame seeds

Xiao Xing Rice wine (or a good dry sherry if you don't have the wine)

Two roasting potatoes peeled and quartered lengthwise

1. Coat your largest roasting pan with nonstick spray and preheat your oven to 400 degrees
2. Remove as much of the fat from the chicken as humanly possible and place in pan
3. Beginning with the skin side down, prepare the meat by generously seasoning with the first six dry ingredients preferably using a micro plane for the ginger (although, in a pinch, dry ground ginger will work too)
4. Place the chicken quarters skin side up in the pan and season the top (skin) side generously
5. Arrange the potatoes around the edge of the pan 
6. Drizzle the sesame oil sparingly over the chicken - a little goes a long way for flavor and aroma
7. Add the soy sauce - not more than a quarter cup and you can definitely do with less
8. Put your thumb over the mouth of the wine (or sherry) bottle and shake little rivulets over the meat
9. Then, generously sprinkle sesame seeds over the whole darn thing
10. Bake at 400 degrees basting with the accumulating juices every 20 minutes - don't freak out if there's not a lot of liquid after the first 20 minutes...just do your best with what you've got and there will be lots of liquid before the next 20 minutes is up.

I usually serve this with some roasted vegetables - for some reason it goes AMAZINGLY well with quartered brussels sprouts that have been salted, peppered and tossed with some olive oil. Put those in the oven in a casserole dish for the last 20 minutes and you will have a feast. The skin and the sesame seeds get crackly and the potatoes are perfectly browned on the outside and smooth and buttery on the inside!

Share this or not - your choice - but I will say that for those of you who like cold chicken this is amazing.

I hope you'll try this and let me know what you think! Meanwhile, stay warm!

-SSG